O Clavis David

The “O Antiphons” continue, today’s from Father Mark:

O Key of David and Sceptre of the House of Israel , who opens and no one can shut,
who shuts and no one can open (Is 22:22; Rev 3:7): Come and bring the prisoners forth from the prison cell, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death (Is 42:7; Ps 106:13-14; Lk 1:9).

The Key of the House of David

The antiphon draws its invocation from the twenty–second chapter of Isaiah. The Lord says to Shebna, the master of the household of King Hezekiah, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Helkias, and I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda. And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father” (Is 22:20–23).

A Key Borne on the Shoulder

Eliakim, whose name means, “God has raised up,” is a figure of Christ. Christ is Lord and Master over the household of the Father. On the shoulder of Christ was placed the key of the Cross, the key that opens what no mortal can open, and that closes what no mortal can close. In the image of the great key placed on the shoulder we recognize a figure of the Cross placed on the shoulder of Christ, the key by which heaven is opened and hell vanquished.

Before Thee A Door

The second biblical source of the antiphon’s invocation is in the third chapter of the Apocalypse. “And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia, write: These things saith the Holy One and the true one, he that hath the key of David; he that openeth, and no man shutteth; shutteth, and no man openeth. I know thy works.” (Ap 3:7). Read on! The following verse is crucial: “Behold, I have given before thee a door opened, which no man can shut: because thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word and hast not denied my name” (Ap 3:8). The open door set before us is like the door opened before the Virgin Mary by the message of the Angel. It is comforting to hear the Lord say to each of us, “Thou hast a little strength” (Rev 3:8). Our little strength is no obstacle to the designs of God, “ because no word shall be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37).

Out of Darkness

The O Antiphons are composed of two parts: the invocation beginning with the word “O,” and the petition beginning with the cry, “Veni.” The petition of today’s antiphon is derived from the Song of the Servant given in the forty-second chapter of Isaiah. There, the Lord God presents his servant whom he upholds, the Chosen in whom his soul delights” (Is 42:3). The Servant is given as “a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Is 47:7).

The Orient From on High

The second text related to the petition of the antiphon is a familiar one because we sing it every morning at Lauds in the Benedictus. “Through the bowels of the mercy of our God . . . the Orient from on high hath visited us: to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:79). The way of peace is the way opened before us by the Cross-bearing Christ. Christ, with the key of the Cross, opens the door before us.

Into the Mystery of the Eucharist

The way of peace leads to the altar and into the mystery of the Eucharist, the actualization of the Kingdom here and now. From the altar, the light of the Resurrection penetrates into all that, in our lives, remains shadowy and locked. With the Virgin of the Annunciation, we have only to believe in Love and, believing, say faith’s simple “Yes.” Our “little strength” is of no consequence. Let us go in to the Eucharist to be overshadowed by the power of Love. Love will do the rest for “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16 ) and “ no word shall be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37).

O Root of Jesse

The third “O Antiphon” from Jeanne Kun: 

O Root of Jesse, you stand as a sign for the peoples; before you kings shall keep silence and to you all nations shall have recourse.  Come, save us, and do not delay.

Isaiah 52:13, 15; 53:2: “See, my servant shall prosper…So shall he startle many nations, because of him kings shall stand speechless. …He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot”.

O Wisdom

Today begins the “O” Antiphons that lead us up to Christmas, from Jeanne Kun:

O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High and, reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence.

This antiphon, like all the others to follow, is based on a composite of Scripture texts.

Sirach 24:3: “From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, and like mist covered the earth”.

Wisdom 8:1: “She reaches from end to end mightily and governs all things well”.

First Sunday of Advent

Who do we think can save us? What are we hoping in? These are the questions that I invite you to reflect on, in light of Pope Benedict’s Encyclical Spes Salvi (Saved by Hope). Today, the Pope himself with the report from Asia News Italy provides our reflection:

“Science contributes much to the good of mankind, but it is not capable of redemption.  Man is redeemed by love, which transforms his personal and social life for the better.  This is why hope, full and definitive hope, is guaranteed only by God, who in Jesus Christ came to us and gifted us life, and it will return in Him in the fullness of time.  It is in Christ that we hope, it is for Him that we wait!”  Weaving together hope, love, faith and waiting – recalling some of the themes present in his new encyclical Spe salvi – Benedict XVI began the first Angelus of the new liturgical year, which for the Church begins with the first Sunday of Advent.

 “Advent – said the pope – is ….  That time when in our hearts reawakens the hopeful waiting for He “who is who was and who will come again’ (Ap 1,8). The Son of God already came to Bethlehem, twenty centuries ago, he comes in every moment to the souls of the communities willing to receive him, he will come again in the fullness of time, ‘to judge the living and the dead’.  The believer is therefore, ever vigilant, animated by the intimate hope of meeting the Lord”.

The beginning of the liturgical years is when “God’s people once again set out on the journey, to re-live the mystery of Christ in history”.  This journey is a mission of evangelization: “Christ is the same yesterday, today and always (Eb 13,8); instead history changes and asks to be constantly evangelized; it needs to be renewed from within and the only true novelty is Christ: it is fully realized in Him, the bright future of man and of the world”.

The pontiff recalled that in his new encyclical Spe salvi (we have been saved by hope – cfr Rom 8, 24), published two 2 days ago, he reflects on the Christian hope and that it is dedicated to “the Church and to all men of goodwill”.

Hope “is a gift which changes the life of those who receive it, as the lives of the saint’s show.  What does this hope, so great and ‘trustworthy’ that we say we are saved by it, consist of?  In short it is awareness of God, the discovery of his fatherly and merciful heart.  Jesus, through his death on the cross and his resurrection, revealed his face to us, the face of a God so great in love that it communicates unshakeable hope, a hope that not even death can break, because the lives of those who trust themselves to this Father, open up onto a horizon of blessed eternity”.

 Benedict XVI also underlined that often Christian hope has been marginalized by history: “The progress of modern science has increasingly pushed faith and hope to the private, individual sphere this is why today it is becoming all the more evident that the world, that man, is in need of God – of the true God! – otherwise they remain without hope”.  In his encyclical he has also highlights that this form of marginalization is also derived from a “withdrawal” of Christians from the course of history, reducing Christian hope to a hope for individual salvation thus reducing the “horizon”, without “sufficiently recognizing the greatness of his duty”(v. Spe salvi, n. 25).

This is why in wishing a “happy Advent to all”, the pope indicated the path to follow: “With Mary, our Mother, the Church goes forth to meet her Spouse: and it does so through works of love because hope, like faith, is shown through love”.